Ulmus glabra wych elm

Ulmus glabra ‘Camperdownii’, Canfield Court (removed 2008). John Rawlings, 25 May 2007

Wych likely refers to the pliant branches of this and other trees, from a root meaning to bend or yield. The leaf may have three rough lobes towards the tip; the very short leaf-stalk is sometimes partly hidden by one side of the strongly asymmetric leaf base. The samaras are larger than those of U. minor, with the seed conspicuously in the center.

An impressive planting of European elms, possibly wych elms, was established along the approach to the Museum around the 1910s. The individual blossoms, produced before the leaves, were tiny, but in February their massed effect created what George Culver, Dean of Men, described in 1927 as “the most elusive old-rose color.” Alas, none survive, nor are any wych elms known on campus today; the last few reported trees, north of Roth Way between Palm Drive and Lasuen Street, were removed in the 2000s.

The species is represented locally perhaps exclusively by the cultivar ‘Camperdownii’, the Camperdown elm, a dramatically weeping, top-grafted form. At Filoli in Woodside, two spectacular Camperdown elms – state champions – grow south of the swimming pool pavilion, probably dating from about 1921, when the tennis courts were built. Each forms a high canopy, and a favorite springtime experience is to stand at the trunk and watch sunlight filter through the lovely samaras and young green leaves on branches cascading all around you. Note the high graft line on the trunk. A smaller Camperdown elm is at the north corner of the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose, encircled by a curious thicket of corky-ridged English elm suckers, perhaps because it was top-grafted onto one. A 6-foot specimen planted in Canfield Court at Stanford 2003 lasted only five years.

The original Camperdown elm was found around 1835 in woods near Camperdown House in Dundee, Scotland, sprawled right on the ground. Another old name for U. glabra is Scotch elm.